Language: The other battlefield

When the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers met for one of their rare summit meetings this past July, each insisted on formulating the main issue between them – their rival claims to the province of Kashmir and Jammu – his own preferred way. For the Indian prime minister, the topic at hand was the ending of “crossborder terrorism,” while his Pakistani counterpart wanted to discuss the “Kashmir dispute.” Disagreement on this point torpedoed the summit, which in turn led to a dramatic upsurge in Kashmir-related violence.

This incident prompts several reflections. First, however comical the emphasis on words might appear, there is good reason for it. How an issue is portrayed determines perceptions of it, which in turn heavily affects its resolution. Wording reflects ideas and ideas motivate people. Weapons in and of themselves are inert – it is arguments that inspire people to fight. Or, in today’s idiom, software rules.

Second, in long-standing disputes, where the situation on the ground is fairly static, the battle for public opinion takes on even greater urgency.

Third, the Indian and Pakistani governments considered semantics so vital to their interests that both preferred the summit to fail rather than cede on this matter.

If anything, public opinion has an even greater importance perception in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the highest-profile dispute in the world (as was once again established last week in Durban, South Africa, at the U.N.’s World Conference Against Racism, where it derailed a meeting about a very different issue).

How do Arabs and Israelis fare when they use English, the most important arena in the battle over public opinion?

Like the Indians and Pakistanis, they sometimes stalemate in their effort to impose a term on the other. Israelis use Temple Mount and Arabs use Al-Haram ash-Sharif for the one and same hill in Jerusalem. Similarly, when it comes to the holiest Jewish site, they disagree over Western Wall vs. Al-Buraq.

Arabs have grudgingly adopted a few basic Israeli terms, such as Israel and Jerusalem, realizing that to talk about the zionist entity is off-putting while Al-Quds is completely obscure.

The Israeli adoption of Palestinian nomenclature is quite different, for it is voluntary and whole-hearted. Note a few examples:

• Collaborator means “someone who cooperates treasonably” and brings to mind the French and Norwegian collaborators who betrayed their countries to the Nazis. Yet this is the term (rather than informant, mole or agent) which Israelis use to describe Palestinians who provide them with information, thereby implying something awful about themselves.

• Refugee camps provide temporary housing for people escaping disaster. In the case of the Palestinians, over a half century has passed and 95 percent of the population in the refugee camps have not fled from anywhere. Nonetheless, Israelis accept that term, implying that their inhabitants still have a claim on Israel. One wonders: In a few more decades, when not a single refugee yet remains, will Israelis still use this term?

• Settlement is defined as “a small community” or an establishment in “a new region.” Never mind that some Jewish towns on the West Bank and in Gaza have tens of thousands of residents and have existed for over three decades, this word – with its stark overtones of colonialism – is how most Israelis describe those habitations. In so doing, they call their own countrymen colonialists.

• The peace camp in Israel refers exclusively to those on the left who believe that their side’s concessions are the only way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, implying that those who favor other approaches (such as deterrence) constitute the “war camp.” This is patent nonsense, for all Israel is in the “peace camp” in the sense of wanting to end the conflict; not one of them aspires to occupy Cairo, destroy Syria or invade Iraq. (In contrast, peace camp does mean something on the Arab side, where it is a truly embattled minority arguing in favor of recognizing the Jewish state.)

In sum, Palestinians have imposed on Israel important aspects of their own way of thinking. They may have fallen vastly behind their enemy in per capita income and advanced weaponry, but they maintain more than parity on the semantic battlefield.

Put another way, who a century ago could have imagined that Jews would deploy the far superior armed forces and lose the political contest?